Utility and recreation vehicles, including pick-up trucks and medium weight flat bed trucks, often include a bed having partial sidewalls. Such sidewalls extend at least three feet from the floor of the bed. To accommodate loads requiring higher sidewalls, a plurality of post bores are positioned along the length of the sidewalls. These post bores are sized to receive a post forming extensions of the sidewalls. When not in use, such post bores include a drill port located in the bottom of the post bores to permit drainage.
Regardless of whether the bed of such vehicles include sidewall extensions, it is becoming more commonplace for states to enact laws requiring loads be secured within the bed. In the past, load binding cables were often strung between the post bores of opposing sidewalls and were secured to the post bores by a clip, such as an S-shaped clip, attached to opposite ends of the load binding cables. In other arrangements, the ends of load binding cables were either tied to opposite sides of the beds or where attached to an overhang located at the top of opposed sidewalls. Although effective, existing methods of attaching such load binding cables to the bed of a vehicle are not without their problems.
As an example, the clip of the load binding cable may slip from its attachment point to the bed. In other examples, tying the ends of the load binding cables to opposing sidewalls did not provide a secure coupling of the load binding cable to the sidewalls. As such, there exists a need for a low cost and effective tie down assembly for a vehicle.